Beilue: Golfers take big step in fight against cancer

Gathering benefits Haven Health Clinic

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Last Saturday, more than 5,000 people entered the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, again turning downtown Amarillo into a lively corporate and community cause for breast cancer awareness.

The early morning pulse of downtown beat fervently in a festive atmosphere of corporate tents, giveaways, balloons and music.

About the same time, 13 golf foursomes gathered in the relative quiet at Comanche Trail golf course to raise money for prostate cancer funding for the Haven Health Clinic.

In a secret right up there with the Mason’s handshake, what’s left of September is prostate cancer awareness month.

“But who knew that?” said Joe Ed Coffman. “I haven’t seen it anywhere. What is the problem?”

The problem, as Coffman knows, is what motivated organized women can do versus what disinterested men won’t. Komen is a 29-year-old foundation with 124 network affiliates that has invested $2 billion to fight breast cancer. Prostate cancer groups are mostly a hodge-podge collection of underfunded, loosely organized groups that meet with modest success.

Coffman, 52, has done about as much as anyone could in that regard.

He is the guiding spirit behind Friends of Fogelberg, a local organization he helped start not long after his musical hero, Dan Fogelberg, died of prostate cancer in 2007 at age 56.

Since the first benefit concert in 2008, Friends of Fogelberg has raised nearly $100,000.

Funds from that will provide a free PSA blood test for men ages 40 to 75 from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Harrington Cancer Center.

Free seems to be the operative word. There’s also a free breakfast and a free $10 gas card for showing up.

And, let’s be honest. Here’s another drawing card: No digital exam on this one.

“Absolutely, it’s a significant step,” Coffman said. “Hats off to Harrington. We’ve been bugging them to do something in September. It’s ironic that it’s on the first day of breast cancer awareness month.”

The two cancers are almost identical in their incidence and death rate.

Prostate cancer will strike more men — 240,000 new cases are forecast in 2012 — but with a slightly lower death rate of 33,700.

What is not equal is funding or awareness. September might as well be National Typewriter History Month. Prostate cancer awareness got about the same buzz. If anyone saw any information to do with awareness or anything the color blue tied to prostate cancer, it must have been a fluke.

But get ready to Think Pink. October is breast cancer awareness month, and a person will have to be a hermit not to realize it.

This is not to decry any unfairness. There’s nothing fair or unfair about it. It’s more of an admiration for the Komen Foundation and its relentless zeal and knack for getting the corporate world to buy into the cause.

“We need a woman to run this,” Coffman said. “We need a woman who lost a father, a brother, a husband or someone close to them and this issue would be dear to their hearts.

“But men, we tend to sit on our duffs,” he said. “Even if it affects us, we don’t do much about it. I wish I could figure it out.”

Maybe it’s that prostate cancer doesn’t strike the same emotional chord. Unlike breast cancer, it mainly strikes those in middle age. And as Komen figured out a long time ago, the message can’t get out without the help of corporate America.

Coffman knows what he would like to see — a miniature version locally of what Komen does.

“People have told me, ‘Well, you’re just copying the Komen Foundation,’ and I say, ‘Dad gum right, we are. Why screw up a good thing?’” Coffman said. “They have laid the groundwork for the perfect model. I see no reason to reinvent the wheel.

“When people see a blue shirt down Polk Street or hear the name ‘Friends of Fogelberg,’ I’d like for it to be synonymous with prostate cancer like pink is synonymous with breast cancer. People ‘think pink.’ I want them to also ‘do blue.’”

But Friends of Fogelberg is battling for funds and awareness, and should feel good about what they’ve done.

The free blood test, breakfast and gas Saturday is a bit of a local breakthrough.

That is, if men will take advantage of it.

Jon Mark Beilue is a Globe1News columnist. He can be reached at jon.beilue@amarillo.com or 806-345-3318. His blog appears on amarillo.com.

Free screening

A free blood test to check for PSA levels, a marker for prostate cancer, is scheduled for men 40 to 75 from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Harrington Cancer Center, 1500 Wallace Blvd. Free breakfast and a free $10 gas card also will be provided. For more information, call 806-359-4673.